Toddler Fun!

So, I do have lots of classroom stuff to share in my next post, but I had to show you some things Dax (my three-year old son) and I have been doing.  I took a break from working in my room the last two days to spend some quality time with my babies...*sighs*  Gonna miss you, sweet summertime.  We went to the splash pad yesterday with some friends, but it's been too hot to do anything else outside...soooo, we have been having fun inside.  Check it out!

SMASHING BAKED COTTON BALLS

This was so easy and Dax loved it!  You will need flour, water, cotton balls, and food coloring.  We did green, yellow, and red...Dax's choices.  We mixed equal parts of flour and water with just a drop of food coloring in each bowl.  Dax loves to mix, so he did this part.  

Then comes the messy part...Dax's favorite.  He dipped the cotton balls in the flour mixture (make sure to coat all sides) and placed them on a baking sheet I lined with wax paper.  

Mia says, "Ooh, what a mess!"

If you notice, he takes after his momma when it comes to sorting and placing everything just so...

After we spread them out a little, I baked them at 300 degrees for about 40 minutes.  They get really hard on the outside, but stay fluffy in the middle.

Now the fun part!  Take them off the tray and smash away!  Dax thought this was great.  (Goggles optional!)

Thanks, Making Boys Men blog, for the idea!

And this was my project...I keep all of Dax's projects and things that he does at school and at home, but I've been wanting to do something with some of Dax's writing and coloring for a while, and I saw this on <where else?> Pinterest, and thought..."perfect!"

Here are the writing samples I already had, and I got him to do a few more scribbles for me as well.  You'll also need a canvas, paint, scissors (or a craft punch), and modge podge.

I painted the canvas lime green (woo hoo) because I want to put this in my classroom.  Then I started punching!  I used a 1 1/2 inch circle craft punch to punch out parts of Dax's work that I wanted to include on the canvas.  I picked colors of my classroom--blues, yellows, greens, purples.  I arranged them on my canvas, then outlined a bit of a pattern with a pencil.  I traced over the outline with paint, modge podged the circles on, then put modge podge over the whole thing.  I'm so excited about this...I know to you it might look like a lot of circles and scribbles, but to me, I see my sweet baby boy's hard work every time I look at it!  :)